Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2021

Geometry Difficulty 8.2 Shortlist Prove it Baltic Way

Let's call the intersection of two segments almost perfect if for each of them the length of the segment is at least 20212021 times the distance between its midpoint and the intersection point.
Prove that there exists a closed broken line that intersects each of its segments at least once and for which all its intersections are almost perfect.

Solution

Consider two equilateral triangles with common centre and parallel sides. The closed broken line A1B2C1A2B1C2A_1B_2C_1A_2B_1C_2 has three intersections, because of symmetry we will consider only one.
Assume that A1B2A_1B_2 intersects A2B1A_2B_1 in point XX. Triangles A1B1XA_1B_1X and A2B2XA_2B_2X are similar therefore A1XXB2=A1B1A2B2\frac{A_1X}{XB_2} = \frac{A_1B_1}{A_2B_2}. It is enough to choose initial triangles of close enough size 1<A1B1A2B2<202220211 < \frac{A_1B_1}{A_2B_2} < \frac{2022}{2021} to make the intersection XX almost perfect. \square

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.